Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of nine children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew, Mary, and Bella. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

Did 4x0.25 with Joseph and Jacob with 0.25 recovery down the canyon. Today the recoveries were slow, so we were able to run faster intervals and did 72.9, 72.9, 73.9, 71.8 - Joseph was with me on all, Jacob fell back on the 3rd and ran 75.

Presented at OpenWest today on MySQL user-defined functions. Due to that, the running schedule was changed, so I ran alone, and the kids ran by themselves - everybody except Matthew tapering. Total of 10 for me.

Splits below. I went out with the Creed and Davin Thompson, their coach Collin Gill, and Derek Moody. Shortly after 2 I dropped back, Derek also dropped back around that point even further than I did, but then passed me and created a gap. I caught up to him around 8 miles and ran with him until 11. Then he gapped me at the water stop and I could not close it.

Overall I was happy with the result. I have not done any tempos longer than 4 miles since September - with the exception of a 10 K race in February - out of the concern of overloading the adrenal glands. And overall my tempo volume has not been very good. So I think I paid for it - I had to back off at 2 miles because I felt my heart was beating too fast - though I am not sure this was necessarily training related. I will test that theory by adding more tempo volume with a 5 mile tempo on Saturday, and 1.5 mini-tempos scattered throughout the rest of the week as often as possible. Looking back at my historical data, I see this pattern - when I was young, I ran best off 100 miles a month of tempo running, so roughly 20-25 a week. Going more than that caused overtraining - adrenal fatigue. As a master, I have run the best off 40 miles of tempo a month, so roughly 10 a week. For the two months prior to this race I was at around 20 miles of tempo a month. Last year trying to do 60 miles of tempo a month caused adrenal fatigue - however, this was when the tempo running was on a 10 + 5 schedule and the tempo being done on week days, meaning that there would not be a nap afterwards. This is perhaps a significant factor - if I split it better, and moved some tempo volume to Saturday, I might be able to handle it better.

The kids raced the 800 - all that are at home and are Stephen and older except for Julia who took the ACT today (her score already came back, she got 26 (English 30, Math 28, Reading 25, Science 22) - overall improvement from 24 in February ). 800 results:

Conditions - 90 F, minor wind for William and Stephen, picked up for everybody else later.

Joseph 2:27.62 (72,75) - won 13-14
Jacob 2:29.54 (73, 75) - 3rd after Rajid (2:25.14) and McKay (2:25.19).
William 2:44.12 officially (PR), second in 9-10 after Kenny (2:42.62). His initial time was posted as just 44.12, which would have been quite an event, especially given his age :-) I hand-timed timed him at 2:43.6, and seeing the odd posted time wrote to Jen about it. She swears it was timed right, and the timers forgot to enter the minutes initially. I still have my doubts about the accuracy of the timing of that race, though, and think he really ran around 2:43.90 with Kenny's time being 2:42.40. I supposed this is really not going to matter, though, if he improves significantly at the regionals. The splits were 80, 83
Jenny 2:52.37 (83,89) - I think tired from the 3000, getting up in the morning to drive me to the half-marathon, plus heat/wind taking their toll.
Stephen - 2:58.14 PR (87,90), 2nd after Shirley Wyatt 2:55.54 - good race, solid splits, PR, just got outclassed - Shirley opened with 91 and closed with 84.